THE HISTORY OF THE SEVEN YOUNG GEESE
When the seven young geese began to travel, they went over a large
plain, on which there was but one tree, and that was a very bad one.
So four of them went up to the top of it, and looked about them; while
the other three waddled up and down, and repeated poetry, and their last
six lessons in arithmetic, geography, and cookery.
Presently they perceived, a long way off, an object of the most
interesting and obese appearance, having a perfectly round body exactly
resembling a boiled plum-pudding, with two little wings and a beak, and
three feathers growing out of his head, and only one leg.
So, after a time, all the seven young geese said to each other: “Beyond
all doubt this beast must be a plum-pudding flea!”
On which they incautiously began to sing aloud:
“Plum-pudding flea,
Plum-pudding flea,
Wherever you be,
Oh! come to our tree,
And listen, oh! listen, oh! listen to me!”
And no sooner had they sung this verse than the plum-pudding flea began
to hop and skip on his one leg with the most dreadful velocity, and came
straight to the tree, where he stopped, and looked about him in a vacant
and voluminous manner.
On which the seven young geese were greatly alarmed, and all of a
tremble-bemble; so one of them put out his long neck and just touched
him with the tip of his bill; but no sooner had he done this than the
plum-pudding flea skipped and hopped about more and more, and higher and
higher; after which he opened his mouth, and, to the great surprise and
indignation of the seven geese, began to bark so loudly, and furiously,
and terribly that they were totally unable to bear the noise; and by
degrees every one of them suddenly tumbled down quite dead.
So that was the end of the seven young geese.